Tower

This clock is hand- and faceless. Look: and you look
In vain for a gold disc. Or numbers which
Are the wild trysts in your appointment book.
Only the ear knows its deceitful pitch
And aches to hear those stone reverberations,
The cadences that limit and exhort us,
Dividing duty into lamentations
And plodding hours into distinguished quarters.

Listen: beyond the tower rise larks and linnets
In antiphons of timeless amorous rhyme.
But we must live the striking day within its
Heartless mocking of such paradigm,
Another clapped-out rugby-side of minutes
Sent shambling from the muddied field of time.

...